


A Theory Of Relationship

by Mimca



Category: Murdoch Mysteries
Genre: Canon Compliant, Ficlet, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, kind of? Just making sure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-17 01:34:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21046130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mimca/pseuds/Mimca
Summary: Dispatched with Watts on a trivial assignment, George Crabtree soon has to challenge his relationship with the detective. (one relationship he was not allowed to think about.)Set right after "Sir. Sir? Sir!!!."





	A Theory Of Relationship

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Through the Long Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16570553) by [LogieBear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LogieBear/pseuds/LogieBear). 

The day had started the way it had in George’s dream.  
  
Well, there _were_ a few differences. The most important one being that they had been dispatched to settle a trivial dispute between two landowners; no trace of any meteor impact foreboding an alien invasion. But it was just like his dream that the chief inspector Brackenreid assigned them together. Him and his _best man_, had he said with customary irony. _Make sure,_ Brackenreid had added, his 10 A.M. on-the-rocks in hand, _O'Riely doesn’t end up dig a crater of his own in his neighbour’s head._ The smile on Higgins’ face that morning had not been quite as chaste.  
  
It was as good an excuse as any to get Watts out of the station house.  
  
Like his dream, Watts was busy with his own thoughts. He kept to himself, playing with the dead skin on his hands with the focus of a blind man recovering his sight. … Alright, George might have been a bit dramatic–then again, an author had to impress by the wittiness of his tongue. Any other day, the detective would surely have agreed.  
  
_(should he find odd that his mind had managed to replicate the detective’s quirks so perfectly? No. It was nothing more than a constable’s job conditioning his thinking.)_  
  
The pregnant silence revealed some inner trouble. Clearly, Watts had not grown as passionate about the assignment as Brackenreid had secretly hoped.  
  
George did not know whether he could ask about it. It was not that he was without curiosity–he would be one terrible constable otherwise–but Watts was still his hierarchic superior. If the detective could pry, and he _sure_ would, the reverse could not be true.  
  
Instead, when the horses trotted down Side Road Four, he tried to distract him from it by recounting his dream. Watts would be the most receptive to the strange tale, he figured.  
  
“But their fatal flaw,” was he going passionately, enthralled by his own story, “was their inability to replicate the personality of their host. It’s what betrayed them. They only knew how to act based on our attributions. They made Higgins a responsible constable, Miss Hart a docile coworker, and even you were–”  
  
George stopped himself, but too late. Watts raised an eyebrow, curiosity evidently piqued: “And I was…?”  
  
“Well, how to put it…” Now, it made sense in his head, but the words were quite limiting, lost their charity, once spoken. “You were… Normal?”  
  
The detective scratched his chin pensively. “… I see.”  
  
“Oh, I’m not trying to imply you aren’t,” George fumbled. “But you wouldn’t be as orderly as detective Murdoch, or as polite, or–”  
  
“No need to mind, constable,” Watts interrupted, but his adverted eyes betrayed him. “I’m quite aware of how I’m seen by my fellow.”  
  
George tried to decipher this distant expression.  
  
It was… _Ennui_. Nina had told him, during their short trip to Paris, _ennui_ had a double meaning. It could mean _boredom_, but it could also mean _distress_. The two significations seemed to fit the detective just well. The poor chap likely had the exact same conversation many times in the past.  
  
Suddenly, the constable felt overwhelmed with resent, on the detective’s behalf. At all the Robinsons of Station House One. At Brackenreid. George even started to resent Jackson; the body he had really wanted to save that tragic night, and whose ghost lingered around him even today.  
  
_(he could not hope for more, anyway.)_  
  
He resented himself, too. Had the Watts in his dream not told him he had not been _listening_? Maybe there had been some subconscious truth in that.  
  
Unlike his dream self, though, he could try to atone. “Granted, I don’t always understand all of what you speak, or do, for that matter. But they make you who you are. The great detective Llewellyn Watts. And my friend. That’s what I thought in my dream, too,” he added, noticing the odd corner of a smile growing on Watts’ face.  
  
“A friend,” the detective repeated.  
  
_(hellfire, that smile. No wonder he tried to scratch it away! It did not belong to a man’s face.)_  
  
“I appreciate that,” he assured. “And I appreciate your honesty. Truth is really the one cornerstone on which our relations are built upon.”  
  
“Truth, you say?”  
  
“Our relationships,” he said in familiar Watts-like philosophy, “must be based on truth. It may be easier to rely on ambiguity, for ambiguity cultivates hope, but it also cultivates…” The detective drew a circle motion with his wrist locked, inciting George to end the sentence. When the constable failed to come up with something, he ended with a hint of disappointment: “Melancholy.”  
  
“So,” George translated, “what you’re saying is, it’s better to know what people think of you, even if they have a bad opinion of you, than try to imagine?”  
  
“Astute as always. Yes, hoping to be on good terms with everyone is setting yourself up for disappointment.”  
  
“That’s a depressing thought,” George commented. Watts pushed away, again, deflecting the extended hand like the shadow of a stray dog; longing, but unable to be touched. Or it was simply his literary mind playing up the situation again.  
  
“Do you really think so?”  
  
“… What do you mean?”  
  
“It’s a fact that most people won’t be able to get along. But, revealing those people in the lens of honesty, well…” He patted George’s shoulder with a firm hand. “You also see the people you can trust. Unconditionally.”  
  
_… Oh!_  
  
His hands clenched around the bridles. He knew that, by failing to find an answer, he had missed his chance. When he removed his hand, George felt a well too familiar emptiness in his heart.  
  
_(he could not admit he missed it.)_  
  
He was reminded of the creature in his dream, the one that bore Watts' face, speaking with that apologetic tone. _You're listening now, but you don’t quite understand yet, do you,_ George_?_  
  
Feelings, in his dream, were way less complicated than they were in real life.

**Author's Note:**

> You should check the great fic that inspired me to write about these two for actual positive George & Watts content. ;)


End file.
